Bats and flowers...

I am babysitting so that means it's craft time! Today we made some cute bats with their hands as the wings. Then we made these fun and simple flowers. You just need paper plates, some food coloring, straws and a salad spinner and your good to go! They had a blast doing both of these projects! Anyhow, it's not the most exciting post but it's something!

Mud Pie??

Literally!

Why is it that Bennett insists on putting dirt in his mouth every time he goes out back to play? Is he lacking in some sort of mineral and looking to the dirt for answers? I know kids do it all the time but it's so gross and a pain to clean up. Oh well, hopefully his "in the mouth dirt loving phase" will soon pass! I guess it always could be worse!

Happy Birthday, Cate!

Today our little Cate would have been 5 years old. As I laid in bed last night I thought about what she may look like. I wondered what nicknames we would have had for her, what would be her favorite snack, what would her laugh be like, what kind of toys would she be in to. As these thoughts passed my mind I was taken back to the day we lost her. I can still remember everything from that day as if it happened today. The thoughts I had, the sounds I heard, how surreal things felt and wondering why this is happening. Although we all miss our little Cate, we know we will be with her again and feel so blessed to have had her come into our lives. Each year we let balloons go in honor of her and her birthday. When Alexis was little and I had asked her what Cate would want for her birthday she would always say, balloons. This year we will let 5 balloons go.

Last night I came across this amazing website. It's at: http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org This website is for families who have lost babies. There are photographers all over the United States that volunteer their time to come and take pictures of these babies for their families at no charge. Then they present the family with an edited CD of all the pictures of their baby. They capture the memory of these little infants for the families and all at no charge to the family. Isn't that amazing! I would love to hug each of those photographers and say, Thank You! What an awesome thing to do!

We love you, Cate!

"Tiny Hands"
Another pair of tiny hands
To lay beneath the clay
Slumb'ring little baby eyes
To wake another day
O God of heav'n
Come guard this bed
And let this angel sleep
'Till earth is pure for tiny hands
And safe for tiny feet.

-Kenneth Cope

Cousins...

My cousin Amy and her adorable family were heading to Davis, California for the weekend so they made a stop on the way to hang out at our place. It was so awesome to see her and her family. And yes, I now feel homesick to be back around family!

Total babe!

This is how Bennett spent most of the night running around. He thought he was pretty cool. In the bottom picture it looks like he's practicing for his runway debut!

Sunshine and mummies...

On Monday's I watch my friend's kids Halen and Beckham, while she goes to work for a few hours. I usually try to have some sort of craft for Halen and Garrett to do. Well since it was totally overcast today we decided to make little suns. Then Halen said to me, "Trish, can we make a really cool mummy too?" It's moments like that when I love having the internet. Seriously within 10 seconds I had a cute mummy craft we could make. They were so excited to make these and had so much fun running around pretending to be mummies!

Typical day....

When it's nice outside we walk to get Lex from school. Her school is a little over a mile away from our house so it make for a nice walk/work-out. I load the boys up and Alexis and Garrett's scooters and off we go. Once Lex gets out of school her and Garrett ride their scooters home. Well, that's it! There's a small part of a typical day around here...

The Little Mermaid

Alexis was in her first play at school tonight. The play was by the Missoula Children's Theatre and it was their take on The Little Mermaid. The part she played was one of the Town Crier's and she did an excellent job! They had auditions for the play on Monday and performed it tonight! Her and the other kids in the play stayed after school rehearsing every day this last week until almost 8pm at night! A lot of hard work but it sure paid off. I really am enjoying this stage in life when you get to see your kids perform in plays etc. and I must admit tonight I was one proud, albeit emotional Mom! Way to go Lex!

Peeps and sheep...

It's that fabulous time of year where Peeps line the shelves wherever you go. I am not a huge fan of them myself but Bryan loves them ( he likes them after they have sat out a while and are stale) and Bennett had his first Peep experience today. As you can tell from the pic below I think he's a fan of the tasty little critters!
On a side note my friend Des pointed me to this fab little site where you can view Peep surgery. To view click on the link: www.peepresearch.org/surgery.html

On the days Garrett doesn't have pre-school I always try to have something fun for him to do. So I recently saw this cute idea to make these sweet little sheep so we tried it out. It was really simple to do and he had so much fun. He named his sheep Strawberry and then asked if he could throw it around like a frisbee; since the base of the sheep is a small paper plate. Who knows how long Strawberry will survive in our home!

Puddin'

All morning Bennett kept getting into the fridge and bringing me a pudding. I kept telling him no and would offer him something less disastrous. Well, finally I gave in thinking "it won't be that bad, he won't make that big of a mess." Kind of how I talk myself into going to the store or anywhere with my kids, "It won't be that bad this time, they'll be good." Well, you would think I would learn since it inevitably backfires on me every time. So here he is, happy as can be with his chocolate puddin'.